


Count On It

by TheGoodDoctor



Series: Group Targets [8]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 06:04:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8238676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoodDoctor/pseuds/TheGoodDoctor
Summary: Eve’s head pops round the door. “Emma, mummy and daddy are at work so uncle James is coming to pick you up, okay?”





	

Q’s surname is unpronounceable. He has made his peace with this. Honestly, expecting small children to learn it would be akin to cruelty, so he's adjusted to responding to Q fairly easily.

“Q!” Barnaby says excitedly, tugging on his sleeve. “Emma’s fallen over! She's crying!”

Mentally wondering why kids were always so excited by such news, Q jogs across the playground to his charge. “Up you get, there, no harm done.”

“I want to go home,” she wails. To be fair, Q’s judgement of “No harm done” may have been a bit optimistic; her knee is actually bleeding quite a lot.

“Okay, then.” He scoops the four-year-old up and carries her back through the school to reception.

Bill, the school nurse, looks up. “Oh dear, that does look nasty. Have a seat. Q, could you ask Eve to phone home?” he says, bustling about to get wipes, plasters and tissues.

Q relays the message to Eve and returns to Bill in time to meet the Headmaster coming the other way. “Bill,” Gareth says, “a year six has just been ill. Could you-”

Bill waves a hand. “Sure. Q, sit with Emma until her parents get here, would you?”

Gareth and Bill trot off to deal with the next emergency as Emma makes a valiant effort to stop crying and clings to Q’s hand.

Eve’s head pops round the door. “Emma, mummy and daddy are at work so uncle James is coming to pick you up, okay?”

Emma nods and Eve smiles, sneaking her a biscuit. Emma beams semi-toothlessly.

After a few minutes, a tall, well-built man appears at the gate. Q refuses to think about how nice he looks. "Uncle James!” Emma says delightedly.

The man, James, breaks into an endearingly broad smile. “Hello, darling. How's the leg? Will it have to be cut off?”

Emma giggles, wrapping her arms around him when he swings her up to sit on his hip. “No, silly. It needs lots of biscuits, though.”

James feigns shock. “But how will you feed your knee biscuits?” Q and Emma laugh, and James looks up at the teacher. “Thanks for looking after her.”

“No problem,” Q manages.

“Seriously,” James says warmly. “Can I make it up to you with dinner sometime?”

Q nods and James reaches out to pluck the pen from behind Q’s ear. He grabs Q’s hand and scrawls his number on it. “I'll call you,” Q says, almost hopefully.

James winks and hoists the child higher. “I'm counting on it.”

James carries the girl over to a very nice vintage car which Q refuses to imagine himself in, because Eve says he overinvests too quickly and Gareth called him a teenage girl. He does sigh, though.

“And he never washed that hand again,” Bill says solemnly from behind him. Q sighs again, from exasperation this time, and his friends crack up.

**Author's Note:**

> Is this very short? Yes. I've been at work all day.


End file.
